


Blanc

by Laurasauras



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Comedy, Humanstuck, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 00:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19937176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurasauras/pseuds/Laurasauras
Summary: The love of my life was bleeding to death. Maybe a different idiot would use the circumstances to confess or something, but if that was how I played things, I wouldn’t have still been holding onto my secret. Be pretty stupid for a man in my line of business to say important things on a deathbed.





	Blanc

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually come up with clever titles, so I have to tell you the story behind this one. To signify the traditions of the Noir genre that I’ve abandoned (namely the pessimism and bigotry) and the more humourous mood of my story, I’ve called it Blanc, the french word for white and ostensibly the opposite for noir, but it’s still a french name for a colour and therefore exists in the same classification. It’s also a homonym for “blank”, as in an empty cartridge in a gun that makes noise but can’t hurt. 
> 
> This is humanstuck, and Diamonds Droog isn’t a human name. I’ve called him Kom, which sounds like comrade, to go with the obvious Jack. They definitely used the suits as codenames on a different mission.

One of the many things about the boss that I loved was his absolute disregard for the truth. I’d known a lot of liars. I’d known a lot of  _ good _ liars. But I’d never quite met one who pulled it off like the boss, because the boss didn’t care whether the words he spoke were true or not.

‘You’re staff,’ the bouncer repeated. 

‘We’re the band,’ the boss said. 

I held up the trombone case I carried demonstrably. 

‘This is a comedy club,’ the bouncer said.

‘We’re a comedic band.’

See, like that. The boss didn’t falter. A comedic band. As if I’d ever seen him crack a smile in his life. (Okay, maybe once or twice, and it had made it pretty clear why he generally didn’t smile. Ugly son of a bitch. I still loved him.)

The bouncer looked the four of us up and down. The big fucker in the back was holding a case that might have been for a double bass or a cello, stuffed full of guns too heavy for any of the regular sized members of the crew to carry. I could see a fuse poking out from under the powdermonkey’s hat. None of us were any better at smiling than the boss. I had the feeling that the big fucker was probably giving it a go anyway.

The bouncer looked back at the boss. The boss gave the bouncer his best face. The kind that made a fella think he’d disappointed him just by being born and things hadn’t improved since then. 

‘You have ID?’ the bouncer asked.

‘Yeah, ‘cause musicians carry a card on them says they’re musicians. Ask what’s-his-name, at the bar, tall guy—’

‘Simon?’

‘Simon,’ the boss confirmed. ‘Ask him if we’re the band or just let us in anyway, it’s fucking cold and if you were the regular shithead we have to deal with, we’d be inside that pathetic excuse for a greenroom already.’

The bouncer looked uncertain, but the boss wasn’t remotely interested in whether he was believed or not and that always gave the impression of truth. A guy gets that way when he’s perfectly willing to stab anyone who doesn’t believe him.

#

The greenroom was indeed pathetic. Cramped and unheated, with the kind of couch that I hoped was intentionally coloured that way and wasn’t willing to risk my suit by sitting on regardless. The big fucker and the powdermonkey risked it. It was very possible they didn’t care.

‘What’s the play, boss?’ I asked.

‘The play is you shut your ugly mug and let me think.’

The powdermonkey had taken the bomb from under his hat (his logic was that he got the pat down on his torso on occasion but no one expected someone to store C4 under their hat, and yeah, I could almost see where he was coming from under the surrounding stupidity involved) and was starting to fiddle with it. The big fucker slid his big self a little further along the couch and away from the jumble of coloured cords that the powdermonkey had pulled from God only knew where. He was a short guy. Not a lot of places to stow that stuff.

‘Okay, listen up,’ the boss said. I stopped staring at the pliers the powdermonkey was holding in his mouth, cheek bulging like a squirrel’s, and gave my attention willingly to the boss. 

‘We’re outnumbered, and very possibly outgunned.’ The big fucker made a noise like he’d enjoy the opportunity to protest that statement, but the boss gave him a look that my mother would have said could curdle milk and the big fucker chose to retract his noise and look at him with due respect again. The powdermonkey gave me a look like we could smile about such things when they weren’t directed at the two of us, but I ignored him. 

‘As I was saying,’ the boss said. ‘This ain’t like shooting a baby in the face.’

‘That is  _ not _ the expression!’ the powdermonkey said.

The boss ignored him.

‘The old lady has a different view of the acceptable number of casualties a job oughta have to me. Me in her office, she says to me that she just hopes we get the job done, not too fussed on our continuing employment, if you understand what I am blatantly saying to you. Me in this room with you, I say that if any of you fuckers die on me, I’m going to be very upset with you and you do not want me very upset with you.’

I put my hand on the boss’s shoulder. I didn’t get a knife in the belly, so I assumed the gesture was allowed.

‘We’re not being killed in a comedy club,’ I said. 

‘No, you most certainly are not.’

The boss touched his hand to mine on his shoulder, held it for a second, and then shoved it off. That was downright cuddly for him.

‘So we take cover and we choose cover proportionate to our size, you hear me, Romeo?’ the boss said, addressing the big fucker specifically.

We got new code names every mission, something about sports teams swapping their jerseys so the other teams couldn’t plan based on their talking, but I didn’t bother keeping up with it after the ridiculous themes had stopped being funny. I’d learned each of the crew’s real names almost by accident anyway, in moments of vulnerability down the bottle or facing defeat. Powdermonkey had just told me his because he thought the two of us were friends. I didn’t think on it too hard, it was easier to not use names at all.

‘It’s muscle,’ the big fucker protested.

‘It ain’t  _ all _ muscle,’ the boss said.

‘Makes birthdays easier,’ the powdermonkey said. ‘The sweet tooth, I mean.’

We shouldn’t have known each other’s birthdays, either. We’d been a crew for a long time. Not a lot of old guys in our business, and I was very aware that I should probably think of retirement while my reflexes were still worth a damn.

‘So, the layout,’ I prompted, to get them back on track. 

The boss stopped looking at the powdermonkey like he could scare his gift-giving habit out of him and pulled a floorplan from his inside jacket pocket. The big fucker took out glasses. Yeah, I thought, I needed a retirement plan. And I’d take the other three with me kicking and screaming if I had to. 

#

I had been in a few fire fights in my time. The enemy of the day, the ones who all wore green like it was a uniform or something, were not my favourites to do battle with. (Yeah, my crew all wore similar clothes too, but there was something classy about a black suit and nothing at all okay with the lurid green they wore. The copious blood on the fucker at my feet barely improved it, and that was only by virtue of hiding it.) This was a  _ scrappy  _ fight. Like one of those sports games where neither team expects to be in the final and don’t particularly care about getting a few of their players suspended as a result. 

I had a hole in my arm, courtesy of a different atrociously dressed individual, and I’d lost my gun a while back. The pool cue I’d replaced it with was an improvisation I was okay with. Surprisingly sturdy weapon, with better reach than a chair leg. If it broke, I’d stab the splintery end in one of their faces. I was looking forward to that. 

It was a damned scrappy fight.

#

There was nothing particularly different about the burst of gunfire that took down the boss, and maybe there wasn’t anything supernatural about the way that I  _ knew _ , maybe I was just looking the right way at the right time, but I felt it in my gut all the same. 

Of course, not as much as the boss did.

I didn’t think, I didn’t stop to take out any of the green assholes on the way, I just swam through the room like it was a dream until I was close enough to drag the boss behind a table. I didn’t realise until we were behind cover that I hadn’t bothered even looking at all on the way to the boss. I hoped I hadn’t been shot again.

‘Fight’s not over, Benvolio,’ the boss said.

‘Pretty sure the fight’s over, Jack,’ I said.

‘Codenames,’ the boss protested. 

‘Knowing the old lady, she gave you Juliet. Think I’ll stick with Jack.’

‘Shouldn’t have told you,’ Jack said.

He looked down at his middle, grimaced, and looked back up at me instead.

‘Ruined a good suit,’ I observed.

‘Go finish the job, Kom.’

No, I didn’t think I would. I didn’t know where my pool cue had got to, for one, and the love of my life was bleeding to death. Maybe a different idiot would use the circumstances to confess or something, but if that was how I played things, I wouldn’t have still been holding onto my secret. Be pretty stupid for a man in my line of business to say important things on a deathbed.

We’d gotten out of worse.

Well, not  _ worse _ .

I considered untucking Jack’s shirt to see just how many holes he’d got shot in him, but I didn’t want to remove the probably insignificant pressure from the wounds. I shrugged off my own jacket and folded it carefully before holding it to the spot with the most blood.

‘ _ Fucker _ ,’ Jack swore. ‘You ruining a second suit? You unwell?’

‘And I do care so much for fashion.’ Well, I did. But the important thing was that if I stopped being a sarcastic droog, that meant that it was actually serious. We weren’t there yet.

‘Kom, I’m either dead or I’m not. Those idiots out there need you. Fuck off, will you?’

‘No, thank you.’

Jack groaned.

‘I don’t want to die in front of you,’ he spat.

‘I don’t want you to die in front of me.’

‘You’re so fucking fired.’

‘When did I lose count of the number of times you’ve fired me?’ I wondered. ‘C’mon, boss. You’d be toast without me.’

‘I’m toast  _ with _ you.’

Well, yes. There was that. The sound of gunfire didn’t seem so frequent anymore. Maybe because half the targets were hiding. Maybe they were running out of their ridiculous quantities of ammo. Or guns, for that matter. There was a semi not far from where Jack and I leaned against our table. Painted green. Tasteless.

‘Do you love me?’ Jack asked.

I looked at Jack curiously. What a stupid thing to ask.

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘Don’t give me that Don Corleone bullshit, we ain’t that kind of criminal. Do you  _ love _ me.’

I sighed. My boss tested my patience sometimes.

‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

I could feel wet on my palm despite the many folded layers of jacket between my hand and Jack’s belly. Maybe this time the deathbed confession would be accurately named.

‘It didn’t seem relevant.’

‘It didn’t seem relevant?’

‘I’m a rather excellent piner. I pine with class. Decorum. It appeals to the romantic in me. I wasn’t about to be sent away from you.’

‘Why the fuck would I send you away?’

I looked at Jack’s fierce, ugly face. His nose had been broken at least three times, once by myself. His eyes had a kind of bulgey quality to them. Thin lips. What a man to be in love with. Perhaps I should have left. A decade ago, I’d considered it. I hadn’t seen the point. It felt like the kind of love a man would carry with him no matter what. Might as well keep the ugly bastard from dying.

‘Jack …’ I said. The reasons were numerous and hung in the air between us. They didn’t need to be said.

‘Had it ever occurred to you that maybe you weren’t wanting for nothing.’

‘No.’

‘Stubborn fucking asshole,’ Jack muttered under his breath. ‘No fucking faith. You’re fired. Again.’

‘Jack, stop talking. You’ve been shot.’

‘I’m  _ aware _ .’

‘You’re ruining the mood.’

Jack laughed at that. I smiled to myself. Startling laughs out of my boss was one of my few honest pleasures.

‘Kom …’

I heard the big fucker let out a proper war cry of a roar and the unmistakable sound of a man being punched several feet into a very sturdy wall. It wasn’t the kind of sound one forgot after hearing it the first time. A small explosion followed and I found myself glad that the other two seemed to be alive. 

‘Kom, look at me.’

I obeyed, as I always did.

‘Are you really going to make a dying man come to you for a kiss?’ Jack asked.

I raised my eyebrow.

‘Is someone dying?’

‘Kom, I’ll fire you again, I swear to—’

I smiled. Perhaps I had had enough of pining. I let go of my jacket and cupped Jack’s face with a bloody hand. 

‘If you survive this after I broke my secret for you, I might be cross,’ I said.

‘I don’t think you will be.’

I pressed our lips together. Jack’s were worryingly cold and trembling with death shivers. A terrible kiss, by any accounting except my own.


End file.
